‘Power Rangers’ Writer Says Color Coding Black & Asian Stars Was a ‘Mistake’

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According to Entertainment Weekly, it’s been reported that some past crew members from the live-action children’s show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (a series that was also adapted into comics), including contributors of Haim Saban, believe that the decision to cast the Black and Yellow Rangers with African American and Asian actors, respectively, was an error.

One of the principal creators of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is acknowledging two casting decisions that were heavily criticized for being racially insensitive.

During the creation process of the initial season for the kids’ superhero crime-fighting show, “We weren’t focusing on stereotypes,” emphasized Tony Oliver, a former Power Rangers head writer, in an interview on “Dark Side of the Power Rangers”, the latest installment of Investigation Discovery’s new docuseries, Hollywood Demons.

Oliver points out that it was his assistant who brought attention to this during a meeting, and they both realized later that the series’ successful run for two seasons was partly due to the inclusion of “the Black character as the Black Ranger and the Asian character as the Yellow Ranger.” However, he admits that this stereotype-driven casting was indeed a mistake.

As a dedicated film enthusiast reflecting on a past conversation, I can share that Shuki Levi, one of the co-creators of Saban’s series, has shared his perspective on the casting choice of Jones and Trang. He asserted that this decision was not premeditated in any way. At the time, Haim and I were fresh arrivals in this nation. We weren’t raised in an environment similar to America’s, where skin color is a topic of frequent discussion. Instead, we hail from Israel, a place where diversity in color isn’t given much thought or emphasis. It wasn’t a significant issue for us back then.

Despite my personal disagreements with Coach Saban’s political views, it’s unfortunate that race remains a contentious topic. It’s puzzling to me why issues of racial equality seem more pronounced in the United States compared to Israel. However, if one aligns themselves with the left, they often adhere to similar ideologies, as seems to be the case with Saban and Levi.

In this instance, their criticism of the black and yellow uniforms for Black and Asian performers appears to follow the contemporary political correctness script, labeling it as insensitive and stereotypical. This perspective might seem surprising given that when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Black Panther in 1966, they dressed him in a black costume without causing any uproar during their time.

I can’t help but wonder if the sudden problem with the Power Rangers uniforms is merely an attempt to appease the modern political correctness crowd.

To put it another way, despite my lack of personal interest in Power Rangers, I find it worth mentioning that a 2017 film adaptation made headlines for altering the Trini character to be a lesbian, seemingly for political correctness points. This change didn’t seem to boost the movie’s box office performance; as this page at the bottom indicates, it only earned about half of its budget. Additionally, some parts of Power Rangers are inspired by Japanese super-sentai shows, implying that it isn’t entirely an independent American production.

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2025-04-17 16:15